Products and services: Mexican cuisine restaurant offering standard fare of burritos, tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas and Chile Verde. Taquiza is offering three house specialties that the owners believe to be unique. One meal features La Taquiza made with handmade corn tortillas with parillada steak, ham, onions, tomatoes and chile cerranos. The second house special is gorditas de canatlan, which is a pocket sandwich with a choice of meat. The last special is torta, another sandwich meal featuring grilled steak or grilled chicken.

Taquiza offers mostly takeout food, with a small amount of outdoor seating.

How did you get in the business?: In 1989 Yolanda Diaz and her sister opened their first restaurant, Cha Cha Cha, in Brentwood. Over the years they changed locations five times, until 2007 when they closed. Diaz’s sister still owes two successful restaurants in Oakland.

Earlier this year, Diaz and her husband, Rosendo, decided they wanted to open a restaurant again, but on a smaller scale. Finding a small site in Oakley, the couple set to open their new location.

Best part about the business: Diaz enjoys being her own boss and building a successful business.

“I really like working in a family atmosphere and meeting the other families in the community,” she said.

Worst part about the business: Diaz said that truly enjoys being in business and can’t think of anything bad about the business.

Key to success: “I think it is really important to have good quality food,” she said. “We don’t cut corners and want to make sure that we put out the best food available.”

Biggest misperception about the business: Diaz said that customers who remember the Cha Cha Cha restaurant will be surprised that the new restaurant only serves food to go. She said that the reason is that when she set out to open a new restaurant she wanted to keep the prices as low as possible. Her idea was to open a smaller location that didn’t have to higher a lot of extra employees.

“We are also a cash-only business now,” she said. “The cost of taking credit cards would make it necessary to increase the cost of the food we sell. So we are now only taking cash and giving the savings to our customers.”

Future plans: Diaz said that they are planning a grand opening celebration in the next few weeks, but haven’t set on a date yet. They are hoping to bring ethnic music and to celebrate in a big way.